LISSA PAUL wrote about AHUM and I MISS MYSELF

‘Children’s Literature’ (U.S.A., Volume 34, 2006 pp 249)

‘The New(er) Critics Are Coming’

(…) Her essay on national identity serves very well as an introduc-

tion to the final piece in the volume, “Children’s Literature in Trans-

lation from East to West,” by German scholar Gabriele Thomson

Wohlgemuth. I was particularly pleased to find that Gabriele addressed

the problem of translating culture, not just language. One example

she cites is a book, Ahum, by a Belgian author I like very much, Wally de Doncker. She cites the rejection of the book by an American pub-

lisher because an illustration of a couple hugging (what Wally describes

as a “tribute to tenderness” [qtd. in Wohlgemuth 120]) would be un-

suitable for American children. As it happens, I ran into a similarly

troubling comment when I approached American publishers with

another of Wally’s books, I Miss Myself; it was deemed unsuitable be-

cause it was “too existential.”

Maybe one of the lessons to be taken from this collection of new

critical voices is that they’ll be able to change the cultural climate, the

assumption of knowledge about children and children’s books. And

maybe, just maybe, the whole chorus of their new critical voices will

bring about changes in children’s literature publishing, education,

and scholarship. Eventually there may even come a time when

anglophone children will have more access to European visions of existential thoughts and “tribute(s) to tenderness”